"Pizza" Focaccia with Tomato Sauce & Green Onion Recipe on Food52 (2024)

Bake

by: Ella Quittner

December23,2021

4.7

22 Ratings

"Pizza" Focaccia with Tomato Sauce & Green Onion Recipe on Food52 (1)

Prep time 1 hour 30 minutes
Cook time 20 minutes
Makes 1 9x13-inch sheet

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Author Notes

This focaccia is inspired by the “pizza” focaccia I worship from Liguria Bakery. The one that's topped with tomato sauce and chopped green onions, and despite its name, lacks cheese of any kind. When I moved to New York nine years ago, I felt its loss keenly, thinking of it sometimes twice a day. This version is my attempt to pay homage. To that thin layer of jammy tomato sauce across its top that lends it an almost doughy texture that, when coupled with the crunch of the crisp bottom and the uniquely tight, yet light crumb of the interior, makes for the world's most perfect bite. To heavy-handed scallion application that infuses it with an indispensable savoriness that's at once gentle and intense. It's impossible for me to see bakery twine and not crave it. You wouldn't be doing anyone a disservice by topping this, warm from the oven, with a big spoonful of ricotta. —Ella Quittner

Test Kitchen Notes

An old-school yeasted flatbread, focaccia is considered “an early prototype of modern pizza,” according to the exhaustive foodtimeline.org by Lynne Olver, “thought by some to have originated with the Etruscans or Ancient Greeks.” Over these many years, unsurprisingly, it has had innumerable iterations. It is typically savory but could also be sweet. Toppings range from sage to rosemary, garlic to onion, tomatoes to grapes, and then some. Even the shape could be round or square or rectangular. Nowadays, finger-dimpled focaccia is all but synonymous with an immodest amount of olive oil, which yields a delightfully crisp, practically fried crust. As Marc Vetri notes in *Mastering Pizza*, “many people think that focaccia is basically naked pizza.” This is sort of, but not completely, accurate. He continues, “Pizza al taglio is more like a small meal. But focaccia is more like bread. It’s simpler.” In this recipe from Ella Quittner, however, it is not. Savory tomato sauce and bright scallions make it much closer to a pizza. And, of course, the world is your oyster (or, uh, pepperoni?) to play around. Use what you have on hand or what you’re craving. Is there another green you want to show off instead of scallions? A grated cheese you want to sprinkle on top before baking, like mozzarella? And what about spooning on some burrata just before serving? Why not? The result would not be traditional focaccia or traditional pizza—but an untraditional focaccia pizza to bring a lot of people a lot of joy.

Read more here: The Saucy Tomato Bread I've Thought About Every Day for 16 Years. —The Editors

Test Kitchen-Approved

What You'll Need

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"Pizza" Focaccia with Tomato Sauce & GreenOnion

Ingredients

1 cupslightly warm water (222 grams) (it should feel just a tiny bit warmer than your body temperature to the touch)
2 teaspoonsactive dry yeast (7 grams)
2 ¹/₂ cupsbread flour (300 grams), plus about 1/3 cup more for kneading
1 teaspoonkosher salt (7 grams), plus more for sprinkling on top
2 tablespoonsolive oil (28 grams), plus 3 tablespoons olive oil (42 grams), plus 1/2 cup olive oil (110 grams)
³/₄ cupchopped scallions (the green part), divided into 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup
1 cupcanned crushed or pureed tomatoes, preferably San Marzano

Directions

Add water to a large bowl, then add the yeast and gently stir. Let sit for 5 minutes, until little bubbles start to appear at the top of the water. Add the flour, salt, and olive oil, and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon until a shaggy, wet dough forms. Lightly cover a surface with about 1/3 cup flour, and pour the dough onto floured surface. Knead for 5 minutes, until dough is smooth, hom*ogenous, and sticky. If you poke it gently, it will spring back in about 5 seconds to fill the poke mark. (Note: You can make the dough in a stand mixer with a dough hook instead, if you prefer—do the yeast dissolution in the stand mixer, and add the flour, salt, and oil, then mix with the dough hook for 3 to 4 minutes. Be sure to sprinkle in another 1/3 cup or so of flour gradually as you mix to get the same texture as you would by hand-kneading on a floured surface.)
Add 3 tablespoons olive oil to a clean bowl, and swirl the bowl around to ensure the sides are greased. Form a loose ball of your dough, and transfer it to the oiled bowl, then gently flip it so both sides are covered in oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 60 to 90 minutes, until it roughly doubles in size.
Add 1/2 cup olive oil to the bottom of a 9x13-inch cake pan. (This will feel like a lot of oil, but it gets absorbed by the dough as it cooks and makes the most amazing crust.) Transfer your dough to the pan and gently stretch it to fit the dimensions. It will feel like the consistency of soft chewing gum. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of green onions and a large pinch of salt across the top. On top of the green onions, use your fingers to slather the tomato puree, avoiding the edges where the dough meets pan (the sauce will burn). Loosely cover and let the dough proof in the pan for 30 minutes, until it’s puffed up.
Meanwhile, heat your oven to 475° F. Once the dough has puffed up, it's time for the most fun part of making focaccia: poking it all over with your fingertips to make dimples. Do this, then bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the un-sauced edges are a toasty color where they touch the pan, and the pizza-like bubbles that have puffed up across the surface are tinged dark brown in the centers.
Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the remaining green onion, a drizzle of olive oil, and more salt to taste. You can slice and eat it as soon as it cools a bit. Refrigerate to store.

Tags:

Flatbread
Pizza
Bread
American
Olive Oil
Green Onion/Scallion
Tomato
Weeknight Cooking
Bake
Entertaining
Dinner Party
Father's Day

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25 Reviews

Gina C. February 4, 2023

I've made this so many times and I finally sat down to leave a review! It is outstanding and so easy.

FAQs

What's the difference between focaccia and pizza recipe? ›

Pizza vs Focaccia

The primary difference is how much yeast is added to the dough and therefore how much the dough is able to rise. Focaccias use more yeast, which gives it a lighter, fluffier texture than a traditional pizza dough and is more closely resembles leavened bread.

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What is the difference between bread and focaccia? ›

How Is Focaccia Different From Other Bread? Focaccia is ½" to 1" thick with a light crust on the top and bottom. It's often described as "flatbread" or "Italian flat bread," but unlike the flat bread we're used to, it isn't flat at all, but thick and fluffy.

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What's the difference between pizza bianca and focaccia? ›

Focaccia is made with an enriched dough—it has oil in it—which gives it a moister, softer texture with far less chew than pizza bianca, which is made with a lean dough.

What are the two types of focaccia? ›

Venetian focaccia is sweet, baked for Easter and resembles the traditional Christmas cake panettone. Sugar and butter are used instead of olive oil and salt. Focaccia barese, which is common in Puglia in southern Italy, is made with durum wheat flour and topped with salt, rosemary, tomatoes or olives.

Get More Info Here ›

What does focaccia mean in English? ›

Focaccia (pronounced fo-kah-cha) is a flat bread similar to pizza dough that can be either sweet or savory. In Italy, Liguria is the best known region for focaccia, which is called “classica” in Genoa, a focaccia 1/2 to 1 inch thick, with a light crust and an surface full of indentations that hold oil.

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What is the best baking dish for focaccia bread? ›

Different surfaces affect focaccia texture in different ways. Baking sheets give a thinly crunchy bottom. Cast-iron pans (put in the oven) give more of a nuanced crunch. Our favorite cooking vessel for focaccia is a baking stone lightly sprinkled with semolina flour.

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How should focaccia be eaten? ›

Focaccia bread can be eaten as it is. It can be cut into a variety of shapes, including squares, long skinny rectangles, triangles. Because it is pretty thick, focaccia can be sliced in half and used for making sandwiches. It's also a tasty addition to a bread basket or an accompaniment to a bowl of soup or a salad.

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What kind of flour is best for focaccia? ›

Focaccia made with high-protein bread flour produces the best results, but all-purpose flour will work as well.

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How unhealthy is focaccia bread? ›

Like croissants and brioche buns, focaccia is high in calories and fat. Most people aren't aware of it, but it contains a lot of olive oil, which in excess has the same effect. To lose weight, people should choose whole-grain or rye bread, which has more fibre and is lower in fat and calories.

Is focaccia dough the same as pizza dough? ›

In summary: Focaccia dough is looser than pizza dough. Focaccia has a much longer baking time than pizza but pizza has a higher baking temperature. Focaccia toppings are kept simple but pizza toppings are put on in layers.

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How do they eat focaccia in Italy? ›

In Genoa, focaccia is eaten in the morning at breakfast or during the day. It is often dipped in milk or in cappuccino at breakfast and eaten warm and wet.

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Is Sicilian pizza the same as focaccia? ›

In Sicily, pizza and sfincione were popular by the mid-19th century. It is likely that sfincione evolved from the much older focaccia, Italian yeast bread that is baked in a flat sheet pan. Then sfincione evolved into what we today call Sicilian-style pizza in the United States.